Toronto Love Song - 3 Years in the Making.

This song is known as a children's song, but it really isn't.
It's always been one of the saddest songs if you listen to the lyrics past the chorus...which the above doesn't use.

"The other night, dear as I lay dreaming
I dreamed I held you in my arms
When I awoke dear, I was mistaken
and I hung my head and cried"

This is the version that I'm familiar with...and it's sad.

This is what I picture the Club District like in a few years.

Some of that shit is already happening...only Toronto wouldn't tolerate all that litter.

Saltfish and Bake



at Papamo

I scored these 1950's tumblers when I dropped my mother in law off at a charity sale this afternoon.

The woman who brought them said that they have been in the basement of her father's house for the past 40 years...she told me that if she saw me on the antiques road show with them, she'd be very pissed off.

I told her that they would be in my kitchen, and that I would be flaunting them in front of my friend Piika who is a retro freak like me.

No worries.

Are women born this way?

I'm told I was exactly like that.

(thanks Anna)

Heed Cher, my young girls....

R.I.P. Peter Zezel



The Funeral was today at Sveti Sava Orthodox Church in Mississauga

via SinPatalones

via Veto Corleone

Behaviour of Serial Bullies

Feigning victimhood:

in the unlikely event of denial and counter-attack being insufficient, the bully feigns victimhood or feigns persecution by manipulating people through their emotions, especially guilt. This commonly takes the form of bursting into tears, which most people cannot handle. Variations include indulgent self-pity, feigning indignation, pretending to be "devastated", claiming they're the one being bullied or harassed, claiming to be "deeply offended", melodrama, martyrdom ("If it wasn't for me...") and a poor-me drama ("You don't know how hard it is for me ... blah blah blah ..." and "I'm the one who always has to...", "You think you're having a hard time ...", "I'm the one being bullied..."). Other tactics include manipulating people's perceptions to portray themselves as the injured party and the target as the villain of the piece. Or presenting as a false victim. Sometimes the bully will suddenly claim to be suffering "stress" and go off on long-term sick leave, although no-one can quite establish why. Alleged ill-health can also be a useful vehicle for gaining attention and sympathy.

I finally fired one last year.
It took me 6 years to fire that woman, and it's made a world of difference in the workplace.
One person can ruin the atmosphere, even if everyone else is relatively peaceful.

Here is more on Attention Seeking Personality Disorders

The first step in stopping this sort of person from taking over your work environment is by recognizing what they are.
They are actually not the victims they portray themselves. They are fucked up individuals who bully through manipulation, and playing the victim...and this society, and it's laws support people like this to flourish at the expense of others.

articles found via Mizi[social]

American TV presenter MeMe Roth has attacked everyone from her own mother to Angelina Jolie in her one-woman campaign against obesity. She tells Gaby Wood why shaming people is the best way to a thinner world

"I try to pin her down to something more specific. Let's just do a sample day, I say. What about breakfast? Roth grimaces. "I hate to say this, because I think it's counter to what most people should do, but I never in my whole life have enjoyed breakfast. For me, it doesn't work as well as other things."

Right, I say. So how about lunch?

She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."

Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."

OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?

"I might."

I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?

Roth is a little quiet.

"No," she says.

There is a pause.

"But I feel great!""

Uh, yeah.
No eating disorder there, eh?

P.S.: It took everything I had not to widen her picture.

PHOENIX - The 4-year-old daughter of legendary boxer Mike Tyson is in critical condition after a family member found her hanging from a cord.

Monday around 10:30 a.m., Phoenix Police and paramedics were called out to Tyson's home in the 6100 block of 10th Ave in Phoenix on reports of an unresponsive child.

OMG, this guys' life is sad like it's cursed.

David Chen, the 35-year-old owner of the Lucky Moose Food Mart in Chinatown, chased down a man who had allegedly stolen a tray of potted plants on Saturday.

Another employee and his brother-in-law who was returning from a delivery helped grab the suspect. They tied his hands and feet and threw him into the back of the delivery van.

I dunno.
I would think that that it's a job hazard for a thief.
Just like getting shot by a thief is a job hazard for a cab driver or convenience store clerk.
Bravo to David Chen, boo hoo to the thief...and a giant GMAFB to the rules of law enforcement that charges Mr. Chen with more than the thief for protecting his business and goods.

(P.S.: The photo is not Mr Chen's store or thief. It's random from google images.)

The carousel life cycle: First you go in the chariot or on a horse that doesn’t go up and down. There are 53 that move, and four are stationary. Then you go up and down with your parents. Then your parents watch from outside. When they’re teenagers I don’t see them because they’re too big for the carousel. Then they come back with their boyfriends and girlfriends. And then with their children. It’s like a circle.

...am I the only one whose nightmares don't consist of monsters and psychotic killers chasing me...but they're full of real life situations that ruin my life.

I hate that.

Radmila cry...



I watched this last night and bawled like a baby.

Ralph Goings - Four Decades of Realism

via Mizi[social]

A Kumbaya Moment

War of Pretension Finally Over.

"Beach Hardware," the sign says. "Your One Stop Beaches BBQ Shop."

The singular vs. plural debate was supposed to end three years ago, when residents voted 58 per cent in favour of "The Beach" as the neighbourhood's official name and marketing brand.

The follow-up came yesterday, when Councillor Sandra Bussin unveiled the first street sign to carry the designation.

"The Beach" says the sign, decorated by three seagulls in flight and a wavy blue stripe, above the street name "Queen St. E."

Whatev.

Being a west ender, I find this petty, picayune, piddling about whether it's "the beach" or "the beaches" really the business of people who have little else to worry about over their Fair Trade Organic Roast, and Hoxton Tandem Strollers.

Being the west ender that I am, I'll still call it the beaches because there's more than one beach..duh.

Things you'd never do, that sometimes you have to stop yourself from doing...

Watch The Slumdog Price is Right and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

via popped culture

Ask Dorothy Parker:

"How Do I Keep My Sullen Daughter From Alienating My Wealthy Boyfriend?"

Jezebel asks a bunch of dead writers to solve problems taken from the UK's Spectator "Dear Mary" column.

Gold.

I loved Pop Up Video

Tweeting Too Hard "Where self-important tweets get the recognition they deserve."

via Krysss

Intellectual Property Asshole Competition

via Funkaoshi

Quelle surprise!!!

Karl Lagerfeld is an "Unbelievable Narcissist".
An ex-assistant has written a tell all book about "The Kaiser".
I would love to read about the outrageous things this assistant must have endured under The Kaiser's reign of employment.

I imagine that he must have had to press hundreds of Karls' giant white collars and had to run ahead spraying the path in front of him with the scent of gardenia...

Paris is Burning



I love this documentary.
Drag queens, late eighties style, and voguing...what's not to love?

Thank you Pleasurehound for posting the whole thing.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

via Bits and Pieces

Some Flying Circus like graphics at Book of Numbers.

Click here to see.

Stories of people who find themselves in situations far from the beaten path, where there are no guidelines and no useful precedents.

Audio really worth listening to.
Really.

I'm dying to see this documentary.

When is the jumpsuit going to come back in earnest?

More beautiful wrought iron artworks at Imagination in Metals.

Found at Crooked Brains

Posted this before, but it's still good...

...and the point would be?

The High Cost of Poverty

You have to be rich to be poor.

That's what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don't understand.

Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don't often explain.

I was just discussing this with a client the other day.
I won't shop at the supermarket close to my work.
I've noticed that it's more expensive than the one close to my home. The market close to my work is busier with longer line ups, and less variety of items. Which is sad considering the people living there need the savings more than the people living in my neighbourhood do.

I understand that it might be more expensive to operate because of theft and security issues...but, I can buy a loaf of bread for 1.19, while my client will pay 1.89 for the same.

I have the option to say, "no, I'll just drive to the grocery close to home"...my client doesn't drive and is toting two children around in a stroller.
To go to a cheaper market, a little further north would cost her time and frustration, as well as bus fare back and forth.

Not worth it.

...and let's not even get started on the legal Payday loan scam.

(Article found at Aloha Nico)

In the Former YU, songs sung by children for children used to be very popular, and when I was very little...Zoran Lekovic was the shit.

Today, I happened to find my very favourite song from when I was like...8.
I sang along to it like a savant.

To listen to it in all it's Former YU cheeziness, click HERE, scroll down a bit and press play.

Beautiful People

A couple of years ago, I linked to Vice Magazine's article about a "networking" community that only allows you into their membership if you're "beautiful".

The article was kind of funny, and makes the members who were featured look a little pathetic, and shallow. The comments are outstanding...and I got a big kick out of how this community was portrayed, and made fun of by the vice community.

I ran accross it again today, and found out through this article that Slice has done a series of reality show episodes:

"Each episode delves into the world of the vain, the egotistical, and the self-obsessed. New applicants are allowed in only if they pass the beauty test. We join them on dates---will they think their date is as beautiful as they are or will they be sadly disappointed?---go to Beautiful People events, and meet the ones desperate to get into this exclusively gorgeous club. Each week we follow those who have tried (and tried again) to get membership---but keep failing."


...and then, I realized that these episodes are actually available online!

Scroll down for some shallow and vapid goodness.

Because it's entertaining to watch people who think they're more beautiful than the rest of the population go about their empty headed business of looking for other empty headed people to build some sort of facade of what they think others wish they had.

It's amusing to me.

Ok, I found this great recipe for fabric softener that costs about 70 cents a gallon, and it doesn't stain your clothes if you spill some.
...and it's all natural ingredients.

I just tried it out, and it works fantastically!

NATURAL FABRIC SOFTENER

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups baking soda
2 cups white vinegar
4 cups water
4-6 drops of your favorite essential oil fragrance

DIRECTIONS:

Add 1/4 cup to the final rinse cycle for soft clothes

That's just mean...



From Bits and Pieces

Thanks Mizi[social]

via i can read

My personal favourites from
The Canonical List of Weird Band Names:

Agnes Morehead
Alcoholocaust
Cream of Whoop-Ass Soup
Drew Barrymore's Dealer
Fearless Iranians From Hell
'57 Lesbian
Four Honkies In a Big Black Car
The Fred Mertz Experience
The Hurling Tandooris
Inhale Mary
Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program
Mussolini Headkick
Sharon Stoned
Shirley Temple of Doom
Sodom & Gomorrah Liberation Front


These are names of actual bands, past and present.

Today as I drove up Dufferin, just a little north of the Dufferin Gates I looked at Sweet Daddy Siki's house.

I always do, and I wonder whether he still lives there.

I'm not old enough to remember him wrestling, but I am old enough to know he was a legend in Parkdale.
I remember often seeing him sitting on his porch, or mowing his lawn when I was a little kid.

I never spoke to him or anything, and I didn't know his kids...but, whenever I pass his house, I always wonder if he still lives there.

Here's a recent article on him in Eye Weekly

Turns out that he probably still lives there. I can read between the lines.
Because if he still lives in the house he bought in '62...it's the same house...and it's not on Jameson Ave or Beaconsfield.
The one I drive by often...

Here's a video clip from the very beginning of his career, it looks like.

Stupid Essays




See more stupid essays here.

(my cousin Tat should get a flashback from these)

Jason de Caires creates underwater sculptures. Instead of trying to create unchanging and lasting works, he encourages the organic growth of coral and other organisms across his creations. He's working on a new project in Mexico at the moment, but we caught him on dry land for a few questions.

Click on image for more Unnecessary Knowledge.

What is your motivation for starting this site?

World peace.

Are you serious? Are you people that full of yourselves? Do you honestly think we’re changing lives here?

I am not gunning for a TV show, a book deal, a spot on a panel, Internet superstardom or an interview with Geraldo. I write simply because I have things to say. There is no ulterior motive.

I officially love this woman...whoever she is.

Do yourself a favour and check out some of her Most Popular Posts.

How many countries can you name in 5 minutes?

I got 53...but the last 53 seconds I spent looking back and forth between the time and the line...and it slowed me down.

5 Creepy Beach Sculptures from Around the World

A beach in Liverpool is home to dozens of stationary, zombie-like statues, all facing out to sea in various locations. To say it's a creepy scene is an understatement and one has to wonder just how many sunbathers have been forced to leave for another beach after being given the chills by these sculptures.

Click on image to see more.

10 Dumb 911 Calls:

Angered that her local McDonald's was out of Chicken McNuggets, a Florida woman called 911 three times to report the fast food "emergency." Latreasa Goodman, 27, called police to complain that a cashier would not give her a refund. When cops responded to the restaurant, Goodman told them, "This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one." She was arrested and the Police pressed charges for misusing the 911 system.

Click on image for the rest.

Water Balloon Hit



via Bits and Pieces

Seriously.

via Aloha Nico

In Toronto Sunday night, demonstrators included young women and children. Images show some protesters grabbing police bicycles and throwing them at officers. Three people were arrested and charged.

I'm interested in seeing how the government handles this.

I sympathize with the cause, being from a place that suffers genocide (...while the world has forgotten the minority in Kosovo...family members haven't).

I am behind their cause...I'm not behind their protest tactics.

However, if this community gets the government's ear, I'll lead the rally of Serbs to block the 401 at Dufferin (you know how we love Yorkdale), and I encourage all communities whose families are suffering elsewhere to choose a transfer.

How many rap songs have sampled this theme after Dream Warriors did?

The Russian Tea Room looks totally gaudy, but it's one of the places I've always wanted to see.

Click on the image to see more Russian gold!

Classic Stars' Family Portraits


From LIFE Magazine.
Click on image for more.

When it comes to holding customers in seething contempt, few corporate entities do it with more blatancy than the Canadian telcos.

That's right.

thanks Funkaoshi

What are the statistics about crimes against children? What is the news that we're not hearing?

The crime rate today is equal to what it was back in 1970. In the '70s and '80s, crime was climbing. It peaked around 1993, and since then it's been going down.

If you were a child in the '70s or the '80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we're told that it's completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it's the same, nobody believes me. We're living in really safe times, and it's hard to believe.

I was just having this conversation with someone recently.
We've developed a culture of panic and fear which is crippling us in so many ways.

I heard Frank Furedi the Author of Culture of Fear and Paranoid Parenting interviewed a couple of years ago, and agreed with a lot of what he said.

Fear is actually quite profitable.

via Funkaoshi

OTTAWA — Embattled Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla has stepped down from her post as the Liberal Party's youth and multiculturalism critic over allegations she mistreated foreign caregivers and paid them under the table.

What an utter disappointment.
Ruby...say it ain't so...

In a March 4 deposition, Hilton, 28, again showed why she is an American treasure. While being quizzed about her cellular phone usage, Hilton noted that, "I've never looked at my phone bill in my entire life," adding that she was unaware who paid such things for her.

*sigh*
I wish I didn't know who paid my bills....

But come on. Who isn’t into this flick for the beatdown? Trust. You won’t be disappointed (unless you’re looking for an abundance of punny smack-talk).

There's a whole segment of the female population waiting for that beatdown.

Berlusconi met Lario in 1980, when she appeared in a play in Milan called The Magnificent Cuckold. At one point she appeared topless and the future prime minister was smitten. Berlusconi was still married to his first wife, Carla Elvira Dall Olglio, with whom he had two children, at the time.

Seriously.
Irony, and comeuppance all in play.

When you board the Venice Simplon-Orient Express (VSOE) train, you feel as if you are becoming part of a glamorous history. This train, with its restored, 1920s vintage cars, is the world’s most authentic luxury train.

Click on the image to read more about the train and how you can book a trip...

See how Chanel used the train in their ad campaign..

Vanity Fair marks the 14th year of its gigantic annual Hollywood Issue, and thus the 14th year of Annie Leibovitz’s spectacular gatefold covers. These classic photographs capture Tinseltown talent and glamour like nothing else. Here’s a look back at all of them.

Click on image for slide show.

Can you imagine the ego-fest on some of those shoots?

Forbes 20 Best Places to Live



We're #15.
Click on image to see all 20.

...and just for good measure...here are 10 countries to avoid right now.

Today's Quote:



via i can read

Case Studies in Schizophrenia

Gerald.


Part 2

Heather


My heart breaks for the families dealing with this.

Let's play "Pick the Perp"



I suck.
The only ones I'm ok at picking out are burglary, heroin possession (because they're skinny), and auto theft.

via Guanabee

Anna Skladmann

“The series “Little Adults” explores what it feels like to be a privileged child living in Russia, a country where its radical history and social hierarchy still rules their daily lives. It is the exploration of the recently growing society of the “Nouveau-Riche" in which little children have been raised to become the “Elite” and behave like little adults.”

Click on image to view the collection of photographs.
They're really quite fascinating.

via The Laughing Squid

"Writer Ayelet Waldman is a bad mother, at least according to critics who carved her name into the mommy Wall of Shame when she wrote that she loved her husband more than her children."

I was over at Jezebel when I read about Ayelet Waldman.
I had never heard of her before, but she's apparently caught the wrath of UberMoms over her statement that she put her husband, over her children.

I dunno. I've known people who were raised by couples who were so in love and dedicated to each other, that their children felt a little orphaned...because let's face it, kids demand it all.
There's that old adage that says that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

But, really...kids don't even care if you love each other, they just want their parents together. It isn't until much later in life that they consider that divorce might have been better all the way around.

Parenting is frustrating business, and you can't choose your childrens' personalities.
There are plenty of women who prefer one of their kids over another. Women will deny it, but any child with siblings can name off mommy's favourite.

Women have been known to put men (and not even the father of the children in question) before their offspring, even while claiming that they don't, and at the same time scorning women who do. There's nothing women like more than pulling each other down over anything from parenting skills, or lack thereof to fashion.

Is it so bad to admit that you put your marriage and relationship with your life partner before anything else?
Would partners like this be more united, and less split by differing on decisions in order to curry favour with their children, as the "fun" or "better" parent?

I watch kids playing their parents all the time..if there's a crack in the parents' relationship, a kid can work that shit into anything they desire.

Obviously, the argument is that this decision to put a man/relationship over children is often based on unhealthy relationships. Abusive and controlling men, and weak and/or abused women.
Not all relationships that don't mirror our own are dysfunctional...

All relationships tick differently...and how you perceive someone's relationship isn't necessarily the way that it is. That's why that couple you thought were so perfect broke up, and that couple you thought would never make it are still together after 20 years.

The best thing in the end might be not to be so concerned with how others choose to live in their personal relationships and focus on our own.

How get out of Jury Duty



Sometimes I wish I worked for the government, just to see some of these gems every once in a while...

via Bits and Pieces.